Revisiting The Community Shed is an experiment in reactivating a collective identity through building temporary spaces.

Interviews with allotment gardeners de-located from their site became the thread for a material and cultural exploration of these allotments´ vernacular architecture, food culture and multicultural society. Design and anthropological tools are used to foster a dialogue with this growing-centered community and intensify the debate on the use of the commons in London.

Interviews, instructable drawings for a self-made East London style shed, and a contribution from artist Lucy Harrison about ways to experience disappeared spaces are published in the limited edition book: Revisiting The Community Shed conceived in collaboration with Geoffroy Tobé.

The book follows multiple narratives: it creates an archive of the gardeners memories, maps the process of reconstructing the shed in a different context, and reflects on the transformations of a locality in a city gearing towards the Olympics.

The narratives intersect at the occasion of an architecture and design exhibition, and co-exist in a temporary living monument, a self-built centre for democratic dialogue, parties and afternoon naps: The Revisited Community Shed. After the exhibition The ‘monument’ is donated back to allotment gardeners, who recycle the materials once more, closing the loop.

Project exhibited at:
Spinnerei Werkshau Leipzig part of In Our Backyards
Alan Baxter Gallery as part of Nomadic Architectures II: architectures of retreat.
Nunnery Gallery London part of Olympic Visions

bbc review of the work
Publication: The Art of Dissent

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project concept, interviews, design of shed reconstructions: Thomas Pausz
graphic design & art direction: Geoffroy Tobé
allotment coordinator: Julie Sumners